76 ANTIQUITIES OP WISCONSIN. 



Chippewas ; and a comparatively slight draft upon the past, anterior to that period, 

 will carry them back to the age of the ancient mining and mound-building. 



Upon a general consideration of these investigations, we are led to the inference 

 that the men Avho built the earthworks of Wisconsin, and those who first opened 

 the Lake Superior copper mines, were one and the same people, and that they were 

 none other than the ancestors of the present race of Indians. Differences there 

 may have been, as we now see in tribes residing within a few hundred miles of 

 each other; but these differences were perhaps no greater at that remote period 

 than at present. 



But to account for the presence of copper among the mound-builders, we need 

 not resort to Lake Superior. Fragments of this metal in its pure or native condi- 

 tion, are A'ery often found associated with the " drift," which has doubtless been 

 transported from the same region of country. Such fragments are frequently washed 

 from the banks by rains, or by the action of the waves on the margin of the lakes. 

 Since the settlement of the country they have often been turned up by the plough. 

 They vary in size from the smallest fragment to twenty pounds or more in weight; 

 and from this source probably all the copper used by the natives, other than that 

 from mines, was derived. The chemical tests applied would not, of course, decide 

 this question. 



With regard to the ancient mines at Lake Superior, it might be questioned 

 whether the old French missionaries and traders did not succeed in extorting from 

 the Indians, by artifice, the secret of their locality, and then make abortive attempts 

 to remove some of the large masses there found. In the report of Messrs. Foster 

 and Whitney, before referred to, it is stated that Mr. Samuel 0. Knapp (who first 

 laid before the public an account of the nature and extent of the primitive min- 

 ing) discovered "a mass of native copper ten feet long, three feet wide, and nearly 

 two feet thick, and weighing over six tons. On digging around it, the mass was 

 found to rest on billets of oak, supported by sleepers of the same material. This 

 wood, by its long exposure to moisture, is dark colored, and has lost all its consist- 

 ency. A knife-blade may be thrust into it as easily as into a peat bog. The earth 

 was so packed around the copper as to give it a firm support. The ancient miners 

 had evidently raised it about five feet, and then abandoned the work as too labo- 

 rious. They had taken ofi" every projecting point which was accessible, so that 

 the exposed surface was smooth." 



Again, " in cleaning out one of these pits, at the depth of ten feet, the workmen 

 came across a fragment of a wooden bowl, which, from the splintery pieces of rock 

 and gravel imbedded in its rim, must have been employed in bailing water." 



Now, unless there is some mistake as to these facts, we are not disposed to 

 attribute this work to the aboriginal inhabitants. The sleepers, levers, wooden 

 bowls, &c., are rather indicative of Caucasian ingenuity and art. Nor do the copper 

 knives of Lake Superior have the appearance of great antiquity. Their form indi- 

 cates quite plainly the knife of the white man ; although the method of attaching 

 the handle by turning up the edges, may be of aboriginal origin. See Fig. 33, which 

 is a half size drawing of a copper knife from Lake Superior, presented to me by Mr. 



